TY - JOUR
T1 - Quality evaluation of commercial extracts of Scutellaria baicalensis
AU - Ye, Fei
AU - Wang, Hongyan
AU - Jiang, Shiquan
AU - Wu, Josephine
AU - Shao, Jun
AU - Cheng, Xueren
AU - Tu, Yaosheng
AU - Zhang, David Y.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is supported in part by a NIH/NCCAM grant (AT 00739) to D.Y.Zhang. Address correspondence to D. Y. Zhang, Director, Molecular Pathology Laboratory, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Box 1122, One Gustave L. Levy Place, New York, New York 10021. Phone: 212–659–8173. FAX: 212–427–2082. E-mail: [email protected].
PY - 2004
Y1 - 2004
N2 - Botanical products have been widely used for various illnesses and general well-being. However, quality control of botanical products is often not performed due to lack of standardization, resulting in inconsistent efficacies and sometimes serious toxicity. The goals of this study were to determine the correlation between chemical composition and biological activities and to establish a method to measure authenticity, chemical consistency, and biological potency of botanical products. A high-performance liquid chromatography method was used to analyze the authenticity and chemical composition of 10 different commercial extracts. The cell viability assay and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) enzyme immunoassay were used to analyze biological potency and consistency. Our results showed all extracts contained marker components (baicalein and/or baicalin), confirming their authenticity. However, significant product-to-product and batch-to-batch variation of these marker components was observed with 4 products containing no baicalin at all and baicalein concentration ranging from O to 52.3 μg/mg. The 50% growth inhibition concentration of the extracts ranged from 0.18 to 2.0 mg/ml, more than an 11-fold variation. PGE2 levels varied from 19.5 to 111.1 pg/10 6 cells, more than a 5.7-fold difference. These results demonstrated significant variation in chemical composition and biological activities of the commercial extracts and that the amount of marker components may not reflect biological activity levels. Therefore, chemical analysis alone is inadequate for quality control, and biological assay s must be included for botanical products to ensure chemical authenticity as well as pharmacological/biological potency and consistency.
AB - Botanical products have been widely used for various illnesses and general well-being. However, quality control of botanical products is often not performed due to lack of standardization, resulting in inconsistent efficacies and sometimes serious toxicity. The goals of this study were to determine the correlation between chemical composition and biological activities and to establish a method to measure authenticity, chemical consistency, and biological potency of botanical products. A high-performance liquid chromatography method was used to analyze the authenticity and chemical composition of 10 different commercial extracts. The cell viability assay and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) enzyme immunoassay were used to analyze biological potency and consistency. Our results showed all extracts contained marker components (baicalein and/or baicalin), confirming their authenticity. However, significant product-to-product and batch-to-batch variation of these marker components was observed with 4 products containing no baicalin at all and baicalein concentration ranging from O to 52.3 μg/mg. The 50% growth inhibition concentration of the extracts ranged from 0.18 to 2.0 mg/ml, more than an 11-fold variation. PGE2 levels varied from 19.5 to 111.1 pg/10 6 cells, more than a 5.7-fold difference. These results demonstrated significant variation in chemical composition and biological activities of the commercial extracts and that the amount of marker components may not reflect biological activity levels. Therefore, chemical analysis alone is inadequate for quality control, and biological assay s must be included for botanical products to ensure chemical authenticity as well as pharmacological/biological potency and consistency.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=8444220391&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1207/s15327914nc4902_14
DO - 10.1207/s15327914nc4902_14
M3 - Article
C2 - 15489215
AN - SCOPUS:8444220391
SN - 0163-5581
VL - 49
SP - 217
EP - 222
JO - Nutrition and Cancer
JF - Nutrition and Cancer
IS - 2
ER -